Rattled Mind

This week’s story was inspired by a story I read about how the British government was turning towards incentives to encourage their population to lead a healthier lifestyle. The reason, rising healthcare costs. That story combined with our wont for smart watches, step counters, and big brother lead to the writing of…

Yes, another pandemic inspired story. It was the only thing going on at the time. Welcome to the Rattled Mind podcast. The title comes from modifying COVID. There was a post going around social media at the time that COVID stood for Chinese Origin Virus. I forget what the ID meant, and it doesn’t matter. The post was inaccurate.

Obviously, once you have listened to this story, you will know the inspiration for it was the pandemic. This story was first published to my blog in the spring of 2020. It was all pandemic that year.

The inspiration for this story is clearly laid out at the end of the story, so I won’t spoil it by revealing it here. What I can tell you is, life is…Not Fair

The opening scene of this story is true about this writer. I don’t think we will ever travel faster than light, or back in time. Since neither space nor time really exists, they cannot be traveled. However, until I am proven wrong, you can't prove a negative.

This like many of these stories was published to my blog about seven years ago, and the inspiration becomes fuzzy. I do know it was about the time I came to realize what an absolute waste of human resources, this thing called war. Don’t get me wrong, if I was called up to fight, I would. But the capital nations have spent to prevent war…battle ships, missiles, bombs! That capital probably outstrips how much was wasted waging wars that could not be prevented.I also sometimes think humanity needs a reset. Something to break our dependency on government.Hope you enjoy…

When this story was written, Zombies were everywhere. Weekly TV series, movies, and zombie crawls. It was ridiculous. Maybe they are a big thing still, I just moved to a place where it’s not as prevalent. What I do know is, I was not a fan, until it occurred to me, what if they were not the living dead.

Have you ever, in the heat of the moment, silently wished something horrible on someone you would never do so verbally?

This story is the result of me having time to think and formulate possible causes to the ills that face us as a race. The human race, not one of our many groups. As I considered why it seemed we were fraught with so many genetic ailments, this story came to be.

This week’s episode was inspired by how dependent we have become on our phone, i.e., devices. There is also this move among Americans to become more dependent on the state. This is not something new, but if combined with devices, we get…

I don’t remember what phase of flight training it was, or the instructor, but he said something that stuck with me through all these years.“No amount of technology can be implemented into these aircraft to make them idiot proof.” Meaning that training was paramount. That being said, the constant push to make vehicles idiot proof isn’t working. Now, lets toss in the recent explosion of AI, and we get “Trucks.”

This story is a spin-off of Box Elder which you can find here on Spotify. I took inspiration for this story partially from watching the construction of the Mall of America. That combined with what the place would be like post-apocalyptic led to Castle All-O-Rica.

This story was inspired so many years ago. I always thought it would be cool if the horns on the Vikings helmet were real, tore at flesh when tackling. The workings of a young mind.

The inspiration for this story comes from a long line of poor decisions throughout my life. I was lamenting as to whether a parent can make you a better decision maker, then I remembered the Magic Eight Ball.

I mulled the concept for this short story over in my ahem, rattled mind for a long time until I came up with a setting. I am really not sure what the original inspiration was. Maybe it was my own experience with circuses as a kid. Real circuses, with animals, clowns, and yes, even lions. Not sure such a thing even exists anymore.

The inspiration for this story comes from the current human condition. Yes, this story was published to my website in the spring of 2019, but not much has changed since then. We are becoming more reliant on technology, delivery services, social media, and the health care system to sustain us, entertain us, and act as our social interaction. And this was written before the whole COVID thing.

If you have read the bible, the Old Testament, not the New Testament stuff your church makes you read, people lived to be hundreds of years old. That is, until one of our ancestors pissed off God and he took that away from us, along with adding pain to childbirth. Special shout out to our ancestors for effing shit up. Somewhere in the strange workings of my mind, I connected this concept with water. What if the one thing we cannot live without was poisonous?

I am not sure if the inspiration for this short was inspired by me telling my wife, “If you run off, I will never date again.” Or, if it was an old 80’s bad science fiction movie called Cherry 2000. Look it up, it’s worth a laugh, to bad 2017 came and went. Maybe both those things were a combined inspiration. That along with the fact that I have lost love that could never be replaced.Hope you enjoy So Close

Alternative Universe is about…well, alternative universes. And how they might be used to live dual lives, experiencing a life you wished you had not let go, or a path you wished you’d chosen. What would be the consequences of using such a place? Hope you enjoy.

I published this story on my website about five years ago, so the inspiration is a bit fuzzy. As a person who lives with a mountain of regret, the do-over was likely the inspiration. That, combined with my belief system, or lack thereof.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. - Alexander Fraser Tytler

The inspiration for this short comes from my day job. I work in IT. Too often we think we are more important than we really are. As a result, there is a saying we put forth frequently. So much so, it inspired this story. Hope you enjoy.

The inspiration for this story is one of the most controversial topics in American society. Maybe others, but I don’t follow the debate in other countries. I personally recognize that making abortion illegal will not prevent it from happening. However, I will follow that up by stating that taking the life of an innocent child is wrong. This is an intro, and not a place to debate the issue. With that being said, my beliefs spawned the idea of this short story.

One of my instructors in Army flight school once stated, no amount of technology can make an aircraft idiot proof. I think that is our biggest issue in today’s aviation world. We are relying way too much on technology to save our skins. This story was inspired by the Boing 737 Max fiasco. It is true, I am a Boing fan, and bristle a little when someone says something negative about the company. But I am not such a fan that I will put blind faith in their aircraft.

Upon hearing this flash fiction story, the inspiration will be easy to decipher. Back in 2019 there seems to be a lot of celebrity deaths. This was obviously before the Kobe Briant tragedy the killed “nine others.” It bothered me that these people got so much attention while everyday people who were real hero’s garnered little to no attention. Think of all the vets dying alone in VA hospitals, or worse, on the streets. Will this idol worship result in an alien invasion…who knows.

This story was written a long time ago. February of 2019 to be exact. Pre-covid I believe. Because it was so long ago, I cannot remember the exact inspiration. It also happened to be before I started adding intros to my flash fiction stories. What I can tell you is, I love snowboarding, and I am the type of person to turn lemons into lemonade.

This episode begins a period in my life where I tried to write one flash fiction story a week. That effort was successful for about half a year. This story kicked off that effort which started just prior to the spring of COVID, and securing the border was all the news. As you may ascertain from my description of God, the President was quite the prominent figure at the time. This episode is a short one, but I think you will enjoy it.

The inspiration for this first story comes from what any writer wishes they had…time. More time to be exact. See, most of us have day jobs and scrounge writing time out of lunch breaks, after the kids are put to bed, or some quiet time on the weekends. I wrote most of my first book while going down the road as a local truck driver. Microphone headset strapped on, dictating to Dragon Naturally speaking. Even if you have an abundance of time in the evenings, there were other distractions, or you’re just simply too damn tired to get your mind in a creative mode. I wrote a large majority of my second book in the evening. After spending a day burning up my creative juices solving technology problems for a local school district. When it came time to edit, I realized it would be better just to rewrite it. I am not one for time travel, multidimensional universes, or other such hocus pocus (I know, and I fancy myself as a Sci-Fi writer?) But the inspiration for this next story came from a profound need to find uninterrupted writing time when my creative juices were at their best.

We all dream of do overs. Many of us wish we could go back and undo that one thing. Make a fifty-fifty decision go the other way. This story is another take on that wish. Near the end of his life, Fletcher is given a chance to go back and undo his single biggest wrong.

If you are driving a semi-truck through southwestern Wyoming on a moonlit night, and the winds are calm. The way the blue light of the moon reflects off the layered rock formations almost looks as though you are underwater… For those of us with an imaginative bent, the mind takes over.

This is the last of the Earth First shorts. Stories taken from a planned trilogy. The story shows that no matter how powerful you are, or how high in society you live, no one is immune to tragedy. This story was taken directly from a chapter in Earth First. I did do some editing to make it better stand on its own.

This story is number two of the Earth First tales I created to promote the never finished Trilogy. I created Herb to give us a glimpse of life on earth long after the Exodus. Life in the only city left when the last humans, so the church thought, rocketed into space. When I finished the story, I liked the character so much, I decided he would find a place in the full-length version of Earth First Hope you enjoy the story.

The next three stories are shorts written to promote a trilogy I started writing almost two decades ago. I finished the first book and had notes for the next two. The title of that first book was Earth First. That project was tabled as I struggled with the editing of the first book. Fixing something when you’re still learning to write is quite a chore. Exodus was an early attempt at Flash Fiction, but it grew out of control. It is a prequel to the story found in Earth First. However, as I sit here writing this intro, I wonder if I should rethink the ordering of my trilogy. Hmmm, stay tuned.

Those Damn Bugs… Obviously, the inspiration for this story had something to do with the ever so annoying seasonal infestation of Box Elder bugs and those Asian Beetles that are not Lady Bugs. I do not remember the thought process that led to me deciding the solution to those annoyances was small dragons. What I do remember is coming up with the character’s name, probably because I looked to the Sunday comic strip and saw the Dilbert strip. Then the disturbed nature of our character just sort of rose from that. I will admit, this story was written when the only thing I needed to start a story was a concept. I would start writing, and let the story write itself hoping an ending would evolve. This is the only example where I found myself writing and no apparent ending was in sight. The experts tell you; you need a story to end on a high note. The protagonist must grow and evolve. Maybe someone should tell that to Steven King. I know I am no Steven King, but not all stories have a happy ending. Enjoy… If you are not familiar with Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern, then I strongly suggest you seek out her books and start reading. She inspired me. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Anne-McCaffrey/author/B000ARA0JO?pd_rd_w=lkjTB&content-id=amzn1.sym.a36c3969-f821-4d5b-a8e8-be129cf4aa4a:amzn1.sym.a36c3969-f821-4d5b-a8e8-be129cf4aa4a&pf_rd_p=a36c3969-f821-4d5b-a8e8-be129cf4aa4a&pf_rd_r=J89WZ7Z6J91XG45SKZHF&pd_rd_wg=Cu74Z&pd_rd_r=43d0d5ad-62c6-4a30-b009-54c3a05261db&qid=1704404064&cv_ct_cx=anne+mccaffrey&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

One of the things I hear most often when a new presidential elections cycle starts up is, “but he doesn’t have the experience.” I have read the Constitution, and it says nothing about requiring experience to be President of the United States. In fact, it has two requirements. One is natural born, and the other is age. If you want to know the minimum age…go read the Constitution. The reason I bristle when the experience issue is brought up is simple. Our government is so entrenched that we could elect a native-born chimpanzee, and most people wouldn’t notice. Well aside from the fact that most presidents are tall men, and chimpanzees are not very tall. As I processed this concept, the odds of becoming president entered into my thoughts, and then the old mantra I heard from my grandmother growing up, “Don’t you want to be President some day?” A spark of an idea became a story, and since there really wasn’t much basis for something lengthy, flash fiction became the outlet.

A long time ago I decided I needed to start writing four thousand words or less short stories. At the time, I was getting seriously into the hobby of freshwater aquariums. Saltwater was an ambition, but that step was just too expensive. As I thrashed through the crap that floated about in my mind, looking for a concept for a short story that I could fit into four thousand words or less, my multitude of aquariums became an inspiration. The story, however, swelled well beyond four thousand words. One of my weaknesses at the time. Please enjoy...

This is story number two that was inspired by the concept of mega corporations or tech giants going to blows. This one being from the point of view of one of the combatants.

Remember the reference to the fast-food wars in the movie, The Demolition Man, starring Sylvester Stallone? The following two stories are akin to that idea. Not because I wanted to take the idea of fast-food wars and apply it to tech giants, or corporate behemoths. The concept for the next two stories popped into my head as a result of the mega corporations we have today. The Googles, Amazons, Microsoft, et al. I think the thought process was, as these corporations get bigger, and entwine themselves deeper into our lives, and each other’s niches, i.e., operating systems, cloud services, home automation, they will quit competing on the open market, and come to blows. The government would stay out of the way or limit the conflict because they did not want to lose their tax revenue stream, or bribes, or political gains, garnered from said corporations, and their conflicts.

I was never good at predictions. Somewhere in the late to mid-90’s, after discovering email, online banking, and electronic bill pay, I predicted that the post office would be gone in ten years. Resilient damn thing…isn’t it? I also predicted a few years later, that eventually everyone will be on some sort of psychotropic medication. Every mood would be a clinical diagnosis, and your family physician would prescribe the fix in pill form. My imagination took this one step further and decided that waiting for a prescription was not going to be enough. The government would force a preventative on all of us.

In this, the first episode of the Rattled Mind podcast, you will hear the reading of the first short story in a collection of shorts titled Rattled Mind. It is a story about a man who has reached the end of his livable life. Who has found dignity increasingly difficult to maintain. Who ranks dignity above all other things. I hope you enjoy your time in my Rattled Mind.